12/03/2013

Report suggests ordinance to govern outdoor shooting ranges

The Town Council is slated to consider a proposed ordinance for regulating shooting ranges.

A draft ordinance has been submitted for council consideration by Kenneth Cole, an attorney with Jensen, Baird, Gardner & Henry of Portland, who was retained by the town to look into whether the municipal government could enact such an ordinance.

The council is expected to refer the draft to its ordinance subcommittee at its next meeting, Dec. 9, 2013.

The draft is part of a report from Cole summarizing the research he conducted this summer. "My office researched the ability of Maine municipalities to regulate shooting ranges," Cole's report says. A memo written by Cole in July, and presented to the council in September, outlines the second-amendment protections afforded shooting ranges, but also the rights of a municipality to impose time, place and manner restrictions, "so long as the municipality shows some strong public-interest justification for the regulation".

Cole was hired by the town in response to complaints from residents of the Cross Hill subdivision about noise and safety concerns at the neighboring Spurwink Rod and Gun Club.

Current town ordinance prohibits the discharge of firearms with some exceptions, one of those being on property owned by the Spurwink Rod and Gun Club. The club's existence at its current Sawyer Road location gives it further protection from noise complaints under state law, according to Cole's July report, but the town may still regulate activity at new ranges, and expanded or new activity at "grandfathered" ranges.

Cole's ordinance proposal establishes a licensing procedure for shooting ranges. It proposes a committee, composed of two town councilors, a member of the Rod and Gun Club, a member of the public and the code-enforcement officer, to review license applications for compliance with standards for shot containment and noise mitigation. These ordinance standards are based on the National Rifle Association's Range Source Book, Cole's report says.

"Based on the various safety and noise concerns raised by the neighbors, the (proposed) ordinance contains specific management practices, hours of operation and liability insurance requirements. However, given the existing status of the Spurwink Rod and Gun Club, it also has considerable built-in flexibility with regard to the licensing requirements, and the time required to comply with them, including the ability of the council, as the final party who would grant such a license, to extend time limits and grant other exceptions," the report says.

Coles' research included federal and state law, ordinances from other municipalities, meetings with the Cross Hill neighbors and members of the Spurwink Rod and Gun Club, and a tour of the Sawyer Road facility.

The Spurwink Rod and Gun Club was established in 1952, according to a listing of Cape Elizabeth organizations in the 1965 historical retrospective "Collections from Cape Elizabeth, Maine".

The town has documented complaints about the shooting range since the mid 1990s. In 1999, residents from the neighboring Wells Road area petitioned the council to amend the firearms ordinance to govern hours and environmental issues at outdoor shooting ranges. The proposal was discussed at a workshop, but the council's preference to instead mediate between the two parties did not go forward.